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The 1995 and 1997 M's made the playoffs; in 1996, without Randy Johnson, they didn't.  But under the new rules, 1996 would have been one more shot for Junior and Bone.

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=== Seattle Mariners ===

Do you realize that the 2007 Mariners, the 88-win club with Batista, Washburn, HoRam, and Jeff Weaver flanking Felix, that they would have made the playoffs?  That team had a lineup jammed full of above-average hitters.

Well, they sort of made the playoffs.  They would have had a playoff with the #6 team, the 88-win Tigers, and the winner of that game would have had an elimination game with the 94-win Wild Card1 New York Yankees.

Looking back at the schedule in 2007, the M's would have burned Felix on the last day of the regular season to beat Texas 4-2.  

Then they'd have had a hot Jarrod Washburn go against Detroit in the elimination game.  If Washburn had won that one, Miguel Batista would have gone against the Yankees in the Bronx ... 

And then if the M's had won that, they'd have entered the 4-team AL playoffs against three 95-win teams:  Boston, Cleveland, and the Angels.  :- )

Hey, they weren't going to survive all that, but c'mon.  As the rules were, they just went home without a fight.

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You might be surprised how often the #5 and #6 teams would play off --- > in order to get to a 1-game playoff.  There would have been three of those games during the '00's, two involving the Mariners.

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The 2003 Mariners would have finished +7 full games in front of the 6th-place White Sox, and we would have spent the entire September gearing up for the postseason, rather than watching a 93-win team sit home.  

The 2003 M's had most of the players left over from the 2001 glory -- they had Edgar, Boone, Ichiro, Cammy, they had Jamie and Freddy Garcia but the bullpen had sagged, taking the luster off the M's "Total Ballclub" shtick.

Full disclosure having been given, biased authors can be objective too.  Juries are comprised of biased people who make an effort to be objective.  Here are my favorite arguments PRO and CON.

This is a typical #5 team.  The #5 team in the AL does not play .500 baseball.  You're talking about a strong but flawed team.  Do you think the 2003 M's were playoff-worthy?

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The 1996 M's were the other Seattle team that would have been in the playoffs under the new rules.  (But see the last day of the 1996 season to get an idea of how dramatic these elimination games could get.)

That was the team after the miracle 1995 Mariners, if I calculate correctly.  It was essentially the 1995 team, minus Randy Johnson.

A massive offense with 3.5 Hall of Famers -- ARod, Junior, Edgar, Buhner.  But a dubious pitching staff that added Jamie Moyer midseason, juuussssst in time to squeak in.

The 1996 M's were 86-75 and represent just about the weakest AL team you will see as the #5 seed.  Feel bad about them getting a 1-game shot to enter the postseason?